Making Time for What Matters Most

The past year has reinforced something I’ve always believed: Time is precious, and life can change from one breath to the next. Maybe that’s why one of Author V.E. Schwab’s recent newsletters hit home for me. She shared her “radical” decision to lock herself out of social media for three weeks in order to work on her novel.

“It wasn’t just the amount of time I was spending on the apps (which was itself concerning). It was the toll it was taking on my focus,” Schwab wrote. “Writing a book asks a lot of your brain on the best of days. You not only hold the pieces in your mind, you then have to get safely out of it and onto paper. It’s delicate work at the best of times. And this year, my focus has (understandably) been fragile. Distractions abound, many of which I can’t avoid, but some of which I can.”

Like Schwab and countless others, I find myself unconsciously reaching for my phone all too often, scrolling through apps and checking email whenever a moment of quiet hits. It’s fun. Sometimes you find a nugget of joy in all that scrolling. Plus, the hunt is engaging, just like it’s supposed to be. But it’s also a time suck. You can easily lose hours to the scroll. It’s such a waste when I know I could be enjoying other things. 

As an author, I feel the need to spend some time on social media—to engage readers and be part of the bookish community. But I can be smart about how I do it and how I protect my time—and my mental energy. I haven’t yet made the bold choice to banish myself from social media, but when I find myself scrolling, I stop and pick up a book instead. Or I write, play a word game or work on a hobby—anything that engages my creativity and imagination. Or I try to focus on being present with the people I love. 

For Schwab, she found the hiatus from social media to be “revolutionary.” She wrote, “There are countless think pieces about the cost the social media landscape takes on our attention and our time—our most valuable currencies. But for writers, it seems to take an even harsher toll, because it doesn’t just intrude on our off-hours, our lunch breaks or down times, or evening scrolls. Writing thrives in the quiet stretches of unbroken attention. In the moments when you could so easily escape into your phone, because no one is forcing you to focus.”

For me, I want to protect those quiet stretches and intimate moments. I want to spend my time with the people and on the pursuits that matter most.

Here’s to love.